ADVICE NEEDED (WiFi coverage & AP placement)

Hardware Hub Networking
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i need advice on a few things first of WiFi AP buying an placement

my current AP unit is a TP-Link AC4000 Tri-Band WiFi Router (Archer A20) -MU-MIMO in AP bridge

mode which isn’t the best for a few reasons

  1. moderate to heavy traffic cause the unit to seize up freeze the reboot while knocking out the rest of my network ,

wired , switch , router an modem i have no idea why an iv given up trying , i can avoid this by not

transferring large files ie 500mb to 4gb to an from any of my laptops an or tables an not fast forwarding

throw any streaming feed on my Roku 4k express , tho this can still happen if the family is hitting to sweet

spot (not really a good thing) if 2 of us are transferring a combine total of 500mb to 2 -4 gb to an or from

the

nas while the 3rd person is web surfing an or watching a YouTube vid

  1. coverage an lag as you’ll see from my heat map diagram of my WiFi coverage isnt great for the bedrooms an

pc gear , note mu-mimo never worked whether it was the router an or my WiFi devices i could never tell

my current ap config is this of the 3 antennas the 2.4 is turned off as i have nothing that need it an when

it

was on even low power mode the tp link was warmer off it runs cooler as for the two 5ghz antennas the first

is set to medium power mode for the bedroom gear an the 2nd is set to low which is fine for the

ht room & Roku

you my wonder why i use the med & low modes an not the high 3 main reason

  1. med an high or both at high made no diff on coverage or lag regardless of ap units placement is home even

placed dead center on the ceiling in the hallway the walls messed with signal regardless.

  1. the drop-out an knock-out issue got worse.

  2. high power mode puts the signal well outside my home well into the street an neighbors yard an house

which i dont want or need that .

[home layout with network & pc gear / wifi coverage

HOME LAYOUT
HOME LAYOUT1920×2624 286 KB

the green is 100% to 85% blue 70% to 60%

yellow & orange is 50% to 30% an red trickles out from 20% down to 10% with a fluctuating to 5%

moving the bedroom gear layout dont help but leaving the bedroom door open does (weird !)

[my network gear an pc gear layout map tree

my network layout map
my network layout map1920×1280 85.2 KB

The advice i need is this the amount of POE WIFI AP’s an placment

my criteria for th AP’s is this

  1. no more then 175$ including sh&tx for each or a pair or set

  2. has mi-mimo function that can work with my gear

  3. WiFi 6 at-least an can be used as repeaters between 1st AP connected to POE switch an or can be

configured vi software management from TRUE NAS an software in a TRUE NAS VM

either vi WiFi or Ethernet port connection

  1. AP’s range either individually or vi mesh set up doesn’t exceed my home sqft of 1250ft my property lot size

is only 0.27 Acres an have no need for signal to cover the yard

my wifi gear

2 x epson workforce 2860 , 2 x Fire HD 8 Plus table 2020 release , Xiaomi Note 10S , Acer Aspire 5 A515-46-R14K ,

Lenovo Flex 5 AMD Ryzen 5 5500U , ROKU 4K EXPRESS

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image1422×1949 198 KB

Do you have attic access?

If so I would hang a UFO AP from your prefered vendor on the celing in the hallway.

You only need 1 quality one and it will be more than enough for your whole space.

The reason your having issues now is that your using a consumer grade not enterprise grade AP.

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no attic just a very narrow crawl space that i cant get to , so im limited to ground level

the cost of what you suggested is fine but two things i need to know 1. does this AP come with a power brick or a regular plug

i was hoping to find one that doesn’t have a brick so i could plug into a light socket adapter

because the center of the hallway an center of every room on the ceiling is duel light-socket which

i only use one bulb a 2000 lumen so more then enough so the other is free an i could use a

Socket-Adapter-Control to turn the light on/off without flipping the wall switches power

2 does the AX1800 have a power range control for the signal like the tp link archer does so i can taper the signal coverage to just the home

4

Not sure if you considered it, but have you already looked at the wifi channel graphs?

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I haven’t checked but damn I’d be super surprised if you can’t reduce power in an AP… There’s people around the forums who have it so can confirm.

It’s a critical feature for high density deployments, and there’s regulation that requires the radio to have the feature implemented in the controller.

Re powering the thing, eap620 and many of these prosumer/enterprise APs are POE powered. Same ethernet cable you’d run anyway for data will supply the power as well. If you don’t have a POE switch, the individual units sold on Amazon include the POE injector. And if they don’t, a simple injector costs $10 roughly (just need to pick the right one)… So the power brick isn’t near the AP, it’s near a switch.

As for Roku, turns out there’s a bunch of USB powered devices that can also get their networking from the same port simultaneously. I have my Chromecast plugged into this Amazon adapter that gets ethernet and USB power inputs. Might want to double check Roku can do this.

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thanks